There are many application tools, presses, and the like for terminating a wide variety of electrical connectors to their respective terminals. One type of application tooling involves compression tools for crimping metal connectors about electrical conductors to form an electrical and/or structural connection between two conductors or between a conductor and a terminal. Two conductors may be inserted into opposite open ends of a connector splice, or one conductor may be inserted into an open end of a terminal, with the opposite end of the terminal providing a mating connection for a complementary terminal. The terminal then is crimped, such as by a hydraulic compression tool, to structurally lock the conductor(s) to the terminal and/or to establish electrical conductivity therewith.
Many types of terminals are used with electrical connectors as described above, including a commonly used terminal having a cylindrical portion which is crimped onto the exterior of an insulated electrical wire having a central conductor or core. The terminal commonly is fabricated as a stamped and formed metal component, with a cylindrical crimpable portion having an open seam. The edges of the seam conventionally are crimped onto the exterior of the insulated wire to provide strain relief between the wire and the terminal.
One of the problems with terminating electrical connections of the character described above, is that the insulated electrical wires are used in a variety of sizes or diameters. Obviously, compression tools can be provided with interchangeable dies for crimping a terminal onto different sized wires whereby the dies can be interchanged to accommodate either the differences in sizes or the differences in forces desired to terminate the different wires. However, such interchangeable dies often are cost prohibitive in mass production environments, particularly in the down time required to change the tooling every time a terminal is crimped to a different size wire.
One solution to the above problem is to provide an adjustable compression tool in which the total crimping height between the crimping dies is adjusted to accommodate smaller wires, for instance, in a larger crimping area. This commonly is called adjusting the "shut height" of the crimping tool. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,173, dated Dec. 13, 1988, discloses a type of tool which provides means for adjusting the shut height of the crimping sections thereof. Such tools not only are fairly complicated, but their range of adjustment is limited by the very product involved. In other words, there is a fairly wide range of electrical wire sizes or diameters, and, if a crimping "area" between opposing compression dies is large enough to accommodate a large diameter wire, that same area is too large to crimp and terminate a relatively small wire simply by adjusting the shut height of the opposing dies or tool sections.
This invention is directed to solving the above problems by providing a crimping tool which has practically an infinite range of adjustment without having to interchange the compression tool dies or crimping sections.